White Regency 03 - White Knight (25 page)

All during that morning, he had watched
her as she struggled to speak in Gaelic with several of the women who were
spinning the wool or as she listened intently while a young child had repeated
his latest English lessons. Grace truly listened to what each person who came
to her had to say. If they spoke to her in Gaelic, she did her best to
comprehend and did not scorn them for not having a grasp of English. Grace knew
each one of the crofters by name, from the eldest grandmother to the tiniest
babe. She knew if they had been ill, if it was nearing their birthday. Watching
her thus only made Christian realize his own inadequacy.

He did not know much more than the
surnames of those who peopled his own family holdings. It was a reserve that
had served to keep him apart from them, detached; it was something he had been
taught by his grandfather from an early age.
“If you become too
familiar with them, they will no longer respect you. Without respect, you
cannot hope to rule.”

The difference was that Grace had no
desire to rule these people. Yet the respect they had for her, the allegiance
they gave her, was more than he could ever hope for from his own tenants,
people who had lived on and tended his family’s lands for generations. These
people had known Grace for only a matter of weeks and it was clear they would
willingly fight for her, defend her as they would their own—to the death, if
necessary. It was a fact made even more evident by the distrustful glances they
had given him when Grace had introduced him as her husband and the new laird of
Skynegal.

Christian had never before felt as
uncomfortable in his own clothes as he had when he had stood among this
population of Highlanders. His dress was not pretentious by London society’s
standards, but here in the rugged Highlands, his velvet coat and nankeen
breeches seemed almost flagrant compared to the crofter’s woolens, woolens that
Grace had adopted in lieu of fine silk. They all wore the same tartan—the
Skynegal tartan, Grace had told him—modeled after a scrap of the tartan of her
grandmother’s family, the MacRaths, which she had found while rooting around in
the castle’s upper garret. To the people of Skynegal, it was a symbol of their
allegiance, of belonging, and it only made him feel even more the outsider.

What Grace was doing here, rebuilding the
estate and coming to the aide of the people, felt right in every
way.
It had reason. It had purpose. If he refused Grace the
funds to compel her to return to London out of financial necessity, the
separation and distrust that already existed between them would only become
worse. He knew in that moment that he would never be able to refuse her the
money she needed for Skynegal. He didn’t want to refuse her. In fact, he wanted
to be a part of it.

“Grace, you will have a difficult
time convincing the Crown to grant you monies for the road-building
project.”

She frowned at his defeatism. “I will
not know for certain unless I try. And I do plan to try, Christian.”

He held up a hand. “You didn’t allow
me to finish. What I was going to say is that you would stand a better chance
of getting a grant if the idea were presented to the House of Lords
instead.”

“The Lords?” She furrowed her
brow. “I rather doubt they would be willing to listen to the whims of a
woman, no matter how sensible those
whims
might be.”

“Perhaps, but they would be willing
to listen to one or more of its members.”

Grace looked at Christian, staring at him
with an expression that showed she clearly suspected what he was offering to do
and prayed she wasn’t mistaken.
‘ “
Let me help
you, Grace. I would discuss your idea with Robert. He also holds a place with
the Lords and, as a Scottish landowner, he would obviously have an interest in
the project. He might manage to influence some of the other Scottish lords to
lend support to the idea as well.”

Grace could hardly contain her
exhilaration. She came around the desk and threw her arms around his neck,
burying her face in his chest. “Oh, Christian, thank you… thank
you…”

The touch of her body, the smell of her
hair, impacted upon Christian in an instant. He told himself to step away from
her even as he tightened his arms around her. For weeks while she had been
gone, he had never once known a sexual thought. Ballrooms filled with variously
lovely women hadn’t so much as given him a stir. Now as he stood there, he
could scarcely breathe and his only thought was that of having her naked and
gasping beneath him.

When she tipped her head up to look at him,
she wore that same smile he had longed for earlier. It was to be his undoing.
The area around them grew suddenly warm and charged with awareness. His only
possible response was to lower his head and touch his lips to hers.

It was a kiss that held all the emotions
they had both forsaken the past months. It was long and deep and utterly sense
stealing. And it was interrupted all too soon.

“Oh—good heavens, my lady, my lord—I
had no idea.”

It was Alastair, of course, simply
following Grace’s wish that he should not feel the need to knock before
entering the castle office. His face was cherry red with embarrassment.

Grace immediately broke away from
Christian’s embrace. “It is all right, Alastair. I am supposed to be
helping Deirdre with the children’s reading lesson now.”

She looked at Christian briefly, her smile
gone to discontent, before she skirted around him and out the door.

An awkward silence fell over the room the
moment she had gone.

“My apologies, my lord. I seem to
suffer the curse of bad timing.”

Christian shook his head, patting Alastair
on the shoulder even as he thought that at that particular moment that he
couldn’t have agreed more. He headed for the outside courtyard on a hope that
the Highland air was brisk enough to cool the fire that was still burning
through his veins.

Christian passed the better part of the
next two days riding about the estate with Robert and Alastair. He had
discussed Grace’s idea of putting the Highlanders to the work of building roads
with Robert, who enthusiastically supported it. Together, they would prevail
upon some of the other members of the House and present a proposal for it at
their next session.

It would mean that Christian would have to
remain longer at Skynegal to get a more accurate scope of the landscape the
estate comprised and to set down a clear plan-for the building of the roads.
There was still the situation with Eleanor and Lord Herrick to consider, and he
had spent the night before doing just that to no happy conclusion. No matter
how he tried to find a way around it, he kept coming back to the same
inevitable conclusion. He was going to have to revoke the one thing he had
always promised his sister she would have. He would have to bring an early end
to Eleanor’s first season and summon her and Lady Frances to Skynegal. He had
no other choice.

As they rode along the brae to the east,
Alastair educated Christian on the particulars of Skynegal and its neighboring
estates. According to the Scotsman, Skynegal was not a vast holding by Scottish
standards such as that of Sunterglen to the north and east, but what Skynegal
lacked in proportion, it more than claimed in physical beauty.

Touching on the mist-covered shore of Loch
Skynegal, the estate moved inland across a verdant glen following the River
Kerry eastward toward Dubh Loch. It was glorious country, mottled here and
there with dense deer
forest,
shimmering loch, and the occasional ancient broch. Along with the beauty,
Christian received a firsthand view of the burnt-out cottages that littered the
silent and deserted hillside close by to the border of the neighboring estate
where the Highlanders had once worked and lived, where stories had been handed
down around a smoky peat fire, and where memories had been made.

Christian stood beneath a sober drizzle,
oblivious of the rain, caught by the sight of a tattered scrap of tartan waving
in the breeze from a tree branch that had been stuck in the ground beside one
of the deserted cottages, a last proud symbol of a time that was seemingly gone
forever. He wondered at how the British people could know more of what was
happening across an ocean in America, but had heard nothing of the injustice
being wrought here. The British had fought for so many years to keep other
countries and peoples from being oppressed by the likes of Napoleon, yet at
home they would oppress their own. The hypocrisy of it sickened him.

” ‘Tis
difficult for the landlords to understand,”
Alastair said, staring at the makeshift tartan flag. “We Scots think on
our past and our native land with a passionate attachment. Many of us have
lived on land that has been occupied by our fathers and grandfathers before us.
In the beginning, the landlords promised improvement. They offered lots to
replace those that were formerly occupied, but they did this by driving the
people from their fertile land in the glen to new homes perched upon rock and
moorland, with far less arable land than what they had originally.”

“Could the Scots not resist, and
apply to the authorities for intervention?” Christian asked.

Alastair shook his head.
“Unfortunately, my lord, it is these same landlords and their factors who
serve as the justices of the peace. The Scots are a devout people and some of
our ministers have even begun to exhort the people to submit and quiet their
protest, telling them that the clearances are punishment from God for the sins
of the Jacobite uprisings.”

As he listened to the Scotsman’s words,
Christian
began
to more fully understand Grace’s commitment to what she had begun here at
Skynegal. She was on a singular crusade to save the Highland populace from
destruction. “It would seem there must be some way to bring charges
against those who have treated the tenants so inhumanely.”

“Aye, my lord, the people did manage
it—once
. ‘
Twas the most notorious factor of them all,
Patrick Sellar, back in ‘16. Ne’er a more callous man has come to the Highlands
since Cumberland in the ‘45. E’en the mention of his name will bring the
lassies to tears.”

“I remember reading that he was
brought to trial for his misdeeds,” Robert said.

“Aye, your grace, and summarily
acquitted, too.” Christian looked to Robert. “And you have seen
nothing of this at Rosmorigh?”

“We had heard of the clearances, but
they have thus far not extended near to Rosmorigh. Had they, you could wager
your last pound Catriona would be making every bit the effort Grace is. My wife
was raised as a crofter. It is not until one is faced with it like this that
one can comprehend the fact that such a thing has happened.”

They had been riding at a slow walk,
talking as they made their way around the eastern border of Skynegal to circle
to the north before heading back to the castle. The horses came around a small
copse of oak trees and Christian spotted something lying discarded in a bog
ditch. At his first glance of it, he had thought it merely a bundle of rags
left behind by one of the evicted crofters. Looking closer, though, he realized
that out of that bundle of rags there reached a single pale hand.

He pulled his mount to a halt and
dismounted, hastening over to the ditch. He took the outstretched hand and felt
along the wrist for a pulse. He found a faint beat beneath the covering of
icy-cold skin. He called to the others for help before gently urging the figure
over to face him.

Christian sucked in his breath when he saw
what appeared to be a woman, perhaps thirty, her hair matted and disheveled
about her dirt-smudged face, a face so gaunt she appeared to have not eaten in
days. She
moaned
when Christian moved her, as if her very bones threatened to crumble. Alastair
handed Christian a small flask of water he’d brought along and Christian
touched it to the woman’s mouth. “Here, miss, drink.”

After a moment or two, her eyelids began
to flutter and she slowly opened her eyes, squinting against the harsh light of
the day. But when she focused on Christian,‘s face, she let out an unearthly
howl, struggling weakly to get away from him as she said over and over,
“Oh!
Sin Starke! Sin Starke!”

A moment later, her body went limp in his
arms, her cries suddenly silent.

“She’s fainted, my lord,”
Alastair said, shaking his head dolefully. “She must come from Sunterglen
many miles north of here. She thought you were Mr. Starke, the factor of the
Sunterglen estate, a man as feared as Patrick Sellar ever was.” He shook
his head. “Poor thing. I fear she’s lost her mind.”

Christian knelt down and took the woman up
in his arms. She whimpered at the sudden movement before she fell silent again.
She weighed no more than a child.

“Help me to get her onto my mount,
Robert. We will take her back to Skynegal and get her some warm clothing and
something to eat.”

Grace was standing in the courtyard with
Deirdre, discussing the list of food supplies that needed to be purchased when
next McFee and McGee made the trip to Ullapool. Deirdre had just set some of
the older children to peeling the potatoes for that evening’s supper.
“We’ll be needin’ some salt to cure the cod afore the winter comes
and—”

The Scotswoman fell suddenly silent,
staring over Grace’s shoulder with an expression that was in one moment
curious, and in the next moment filled with dread.

Grace turned and saw that several figures
were approaching down the hillside on horseback, no doubt Christian, Robert,
and Alastair returning from their ride. She started across the courtyard to
meet them, shielding her eyes against the sunlight. She recognized Alastair
first atop his pony, for his bright tartan suit made him the most conspicuous.
Robert rode beside him on Bayard, his stallion, but Grace barely took account
of him, for she was focused completely upon Christian. He seemed to be carrying
something before him on his horse and then she realized it was not
something
he carried, but someone.

“Deirdre, come!”

Together the two women hurried to meet
them.

“Christian, good heavens, what has
happened?”

“We found her near the east border.
She is unconscious.”

He pulled his horse to a halt at the small
door leading inside the castle, where Flora at that moment stuck out her head,
no doubt wondering what the commotion was about.

As the others followed, Robert and
Alastair quickly told Grace of how they had found the woman lying near dead and
delusional at the other side of the estate, a distance of nearly two miles.
Christian took the woman to the warmest room in the keep, the kitchen, and lay
her in the pine box bed that was built into the wall, where Flora usually
slept. As Christian stepped away, Deirdre came forward to see to the woman. As
soon as she turned her face into the light, Deirdre let out a gasp.

“Gun sealladh Dia oirnn!”

Grace knew that expression.
God have
mercy upon us.

“What is it, Deirdre?”

Deirdre’s eyes were wide with fear.
“She is Seonag, my Tom’s sister.”

Just then the woman, Seonag, cried out,
conscious now, clutching at her belly.
“Leanabh!”

And in that instant, Grace froze for she
had recognized the Gaelic word for
babe.